Monday, 21 March 2016

EgaFem’s goal is to reach Gender Equality of Opportunity. In order to do this we need to understand what this means, and how to test for it. We need to know what ‘good’ looks like, and how to identify when it has, or hasn’t been reached.

Our #NounSwap test is a good heuristic, but what is Gender Equality of Opportunity and how can it be influenced and measured?

In order to ask this question we broke down the wording, along with the help from some feedback by @kalidasa476 [1] on twitter, we’ve created a simple infograph. But what does it mean?

Gender

As discussed before [2], gender is not purely a social construct but is influenced by biology. This means we cannot use outcome as a measure of discrimination or equality. This is a shame, as measuring outcome is much easier than measuring opportunity.

This isn’t to say that discrimination doesn’t exist, simply that it is a far more complex issue and care must be taken when comparing the outcome of numbers.

Equal

In order for something to be equal there must be a comparison. As we are discussing gender, there must be a comparison of male and female data. And this data must be collected using the same method. Any data that uses different methods, or treats the raw data differently is being biased and should be discounted.

This means whenever statistics showing the impact on women are used, they must show the equal male statistics, collected using the same technique and interpreted the same way, in order to claim there is a gendered issue.

This includes the original set up and definitions, which should not bias against one gender in order to force a gendered issue.

When an issue is claimed to be gendered, it is fully legitimate to ask for, or point out the opposite gendered statistics to compare it too.

This is not to say that men and women should be equally victimised. But when discussing gendered issues, it is important to compare the disparity to prove it is a gendered issue, and then work towards providing suitable solutions for all victims, without discrimination based on gender.

Statistics are useful in order to help provide proportional help and support, to ensure funding reaches all victims that require help, and provide the same opportunity for all victims to get support. It can also be useful when comparing the impact of a solution on a problem and identifying when a solution may be unsuitable for one, or both, genders. In some circumstances due to biological differences it may be suitable to provide tailored solutions to the genders.

Violence Against Women

The UN’s definition of Violence Against Women (VAW) is:

“For the purposes of this Declaration, the term "violence against women" means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” [3]

Statistics can become biased in many ways. An example is to inflate or diminish statistics using different methods. One such example of inflation is to purposely use a definition wider than traditionally accepted, such as to include 'sex while drunk' as rape within rape statistics.

Any statistics that purposely inflate the victimhood of women when compared to the male data (or worse, when the male data is completely excluded) causes purposeful psychological harm and suffering to women, based on their gender, through fear of men and masculinity. This deprives them of their liberty through oppression by discouraging them from taking risks and gaining economic freedom for themselves, especially within male dominated spaces.

Along the same vein, any study that purposely inflate the perpetration of men when compared to the female data (or worse, when the female data is completely excluded) similarly causes psychological harm and suffering to women through perceived lack of impact and agency. This discourages women from taking risks and gaining economic freedom for themselves, and increases discrimination against women by reinforcing the concept that women are less capable than men.

Opportunity

This was the hardest part to decipher. What exactly creates ‘opportunity’?

Opportunity has two aspects, pre- and post- an event.

Before the event, there must be equal access to resources, equal chance, and equal freedom to try. Aspects of social pressure, discrimination, and support feature heavily in this area.

After the event, there must be equal responsibility for the consequences – for better or worse. This includes aspects such as acceptance of personal responsibility for poor decisions, and equal punishment for equal crimes.

This must be a universally applicable principle, both when benefiting and disadvantaging women on an individual basis, equally to men.

Social pressure is part of opportunity. This includes both encouragement and discouragement from society. However, there is a feedback loop between social pressures and institutions. They feed into each other.

This is why organisations, including governments, must be particularly careful when providing gender based statistics.

Is there a Systematically Institutionalised War on Women?

Intuitions include aspects of:

Governments

Pharmaceuticals

Laws

Education

Marriage

Religion

Military and Police

Media

Business and Organisations

Charities

etc.

When there are consistent messages from these bodies that women are victims, and men are perpetrators through inflated statistics and a lack of true gender comparison under the UN definition of Violence Against Women, they are actively contributing to a ‘War on Women’.

The Next Steps

This is a huge piece of work.

The only thing EgaFem can do is to tackle this a small piece at a time. To make small changes. To fight for women’s equality – to fighting against the War on Women.

Over the coming days, weeks, months, years and decades, EgaFem will fight. We will take this problem piece by piece. We will investigate. And we will create campaigns to change laws and pressure institutions to stop their War on Women and provide Equal Opportunity for Women.

Anarcha- Feminism
Anarcha-feminism is sometimes called Anarchist or Anarcho Feminism and combines anarchism with feminism by supporting the concept of decentralization and free association. It is often associated with Radical Feminism due to the extreme nature of their demands for society to be fundamentally changed, but do not wish to replace it with a socialist structure like Socialist Feminism. It is based on the work of Emma Goldman [26].Amazon Feminism
Amazon Feminists reject the assertion that women should play the part of a passive, weak and physically helpless person. They focus on physical equality, with many Amazon Feminists going as far as rejecting the evidence that women are less physically capable then men [1, 2, 3].

Birth Feminism
Birth Feminists encourage women to empower themselves through research in order to make informed decisions during pregnancy and labour, with particular emphasis on personal responsibility for choice and health [4]. However, there has been some criticism highlighting that birth often doesn’t go to plan, and events happen outside of the women’s control which may make the woman feel even more traumatised if her birth doesn’t go as she envisioned [5].

Care Focused Feminism
Care Focused Feminists consider the stereotypical women’s capably for caring for others as a strength, than a human weakness. They believe that justice is masculine and must be balanced with feminism care [6].Cultural/ Difference/ Uniqueness/ Essentialist Feminine Feminism
Often seen as opposing Socialist Feminism, Cultural Feminists promote a women-affirming culture, arguing men and women are different biologically, but should be equally valued [1, 3 7]. They believe that the world is current encouraged to be too masculine, and there should be more balanced towards the feminine [3, 8].

“Cultural feminists believe that because of these differences, if women ruled the world there would be no more war and it would be a better place. Essentially, a women's way is the right and better way for everyone. Western society values male thought and the ideas of independence, hierarchy, competition and domination. Females values ideas such as interdependence, cooperation, relationships, community, sharing, joy, trust and peace. Unfortunately, says the cultural feminist, these ideas are not valued in contemporary western societies” [9]

They have been criticised for being separatists and trying to keep women’s music, art and studies segregated from men [7]. Another criticism is Cultural feminism is hugely sexist, promoting the ideas of male and female as stereotypes and judging based on these assumptions, such as claims like the ‘women’s way is the best way’ [0, 3].

Some feminists that fall into this branch believe the difference between men and women are so vast that men could not possibly understand, nor represent women [10].

They’re ideology closely mimics Radical Feminism as is sometimes conflated as the same thing, this could be viewed as a sub-category of Radical Feminism [10].

Eco/ Environmental Feminism
Ecofeminsits see an analogy between the perceived oppression of women by men to the harmful domination and rape of the environment by male dominated cultures. They even go as far to claim that women are inherently more one with nature, and thus the natural protectors of it, implying men are the natural destructors [1, 3, 9, 10, 11].

Erotic Feminism
Erotic Feminists link eroticism to life-giving, which they claim is inherently opposed to war and thus is distinctly feminine [3].

Existentialist Feminism
Derived from the teachings of Simone de Beauvoir who advocated that women are not always powerless and do not need to be dependent on men [12]

Feminizi Feminism
There have been some comparisons between some Feminist’s tactics and the Nazi’s treatment of Jews leading up to the holocaust, for example the dehumanization of men. These those who use these tactics have been termed Feminizis [13].

However, there are some radical feminists who have embraced this term and attempted to make it their own [1].

French Feminism
French thinkers such as Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Simone de Beauvoir, Monique Wittig, and Hélène Cixous influenced Feminism after the 1970s by adding a philosophical dimension to feminist theory [1].

Gender or Woman’s Studies Feminism
Courses and university degrees are available in Gender and Woman’s Studies. These are interdisciplinary courses that centre on gender identity often covering topics of sexuality, literature, language, geography, history, political science sociology, cinema, media studies, human development, law, medicine and so forth. They generally puts forth that gender is a social construct and concentrate on the study of privilege and power [14, 15, 16].

These courses have been accused of promoting propaganda and indoctrination [17], however, those who have invested vast amounts of time, effort and money into them may find themselves personally invested in the teachings [0].

Islamic Feminism
Islamic Feminists or ‘Musawah’ (equality in Arabic) [18] work within the framework of the Qur’an to achieve a more equal interpretation for the Muslim faith. They concentrate on the grey areas that could have many meanings but are currently skewed towards a patriarchal interpretation. Examples including how much a women should cover herself, the laws banning women from driving (in Saudi Arabia), all the way to domestic violence and issues around rape. They do not wish to make fundamental changes to their faith, but work within Islamic values [18, 19, 20, 21].

Moderate Feminism
Moderate Feminists are those who push for feminist ideas and equality for women, but don’t call themselves feminists. The Moderate Feminist label is thrust upon them, rather than being voluntarily taken [1, 3, 22]. This may be due to agreeing with some of the Feminist campaigns, but not wanting to be associated with the negative connotations that Feminism has become linked too [0].

Pop Feminism
Pop Feminists focus on ‘girl power’ and the portrayal of women’s empowerment within the media, often as caricatures such as the Spice Girls, Powerpuff Girls, She-Ra, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charlie’s Angels [1].

Psychoanalytic Feminism
Psychoanalytic Feminists based their theory on the works of Jaques Lacan and Freud. They postulate that women born into a patriarchal society only have a masculine perspective as a point of reference and due to this “masculinity in women’s heads” [10] women have never truly experienced what is it to be female [1, 10. 23].

Psychoanalytical Feminist solutions include women re-assessing their own worth, the celebration of womanhood and femininity, women-only spaces, a redefinition of sexuality, breaking their dependence on men, and developing new concepts and language [10].

Separatist Feminism
Separatist Feminists advocate for the segregation of the genders, some of whom go as far as to spell ‘women’ as ‘womyn’ to remove the link to ‘man.’ Separation could be physical, emotional, psychological and/or spiritual [1].

Tumblr Feminism
Tumblr Feminists do not only reside on the microblogging site Tumblr, nor are all Feminists on Tumblr ‘Tumblr Feminists.’ The term Tumblr Feminists is a very negative term used to describe individuals who ostracize others for ideas they disagree with, have an inability to debate, have a lack of unbiased (or any) evidence for their assertions, and often have the childish behaviours of throwing a tantrum when others challenge their world view. [24, 25].